What do successful people have in common? We may think they’re cleverer than us, have luckier breaks and are perhaps more ruthless than us.

However, I believe the recipe for personal success has three key ingredients. Clarity of personal vision, self-belief and action.

Having done your SWOT analysis from last month’s column, hopefully you’ve identified your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. So, the next obvious step is to take action. It’s common sense, right? But do you find yourself with excuses such as “I’ll start tomorrow” or “when I have the right job” or “when I have more time.” Before you know it, five (or, worse, 10) years will have passed and you’ll still just be thinking about it!

The good news is that you can absolutely start right now and all it takes is three steps:

Personal vision: Imagine it is the year 2020. How old are you now? Where are you? What kind of job do you have? Where are you living? What is your lifestyle like? Suspend reality for a moment and imagine you’ve achieved success in your career. What did you do? How did you get there? Be bold and think big. Write a short summary describing a ‘life in the day of yourself’, telling a friend who you haven’t seen for five years how you became so successful. How did you do it? This is your vision.

Resilience: Successful people have an abundance of self-belief and are resilient in the face of setbacks. I’m not talking about arrogance, but confidence. You will hit setbacks, shut doors and you’ll definitely make mistakes. Never lose sight of your vision, of where you’re heading. Keep developing and learning and your confidence will grow. Be resilient and keep going.

Action: Take masses of action every day, every week, every month. This is what successful people do. They’re no longer only thinking about their vision, they’re also working hard, learning, making mistakes, picking themselves up and taking even more action. Every month, brainstorm three to five actions you could take that would move you closer to your goal. Schedule your actions and just do it.

Having clarity of your vision, being resilient and taking action can, I can guarantee, help you achieve more than you ever thought possible.

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